The Rundown: Edition 60 – We are so back
Welcome to The Rundown, a snapshot of news, views and intel from the fast-growth tech and investment scene, brought to you by FieldHouse Associates.
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Palantir awarded UK grid operator contract without tender
The state-owned National Energy System Operator (Neso) has awarded Palantir a £21 million contract without a competitive tender process. Neso argues that critical grid processes are too reliant on its technology to run a competitive procurement bid. FT
UK spends $40m on SpaceX
The Ministry of Defence is becoming increasingly reliant on Elon Musk’s SpaceX satellite services, spending $40 million on Starlink and Starshield capabilities. Details from a freedom of information request show that Britain is the first country outside the US to publicly acknowledge adopting Starshield. Reuters
Anthropic: 10% chance AI could “kill all humans”
A leading AI safety researcher at Anthropic has sounded the alarm and warned that there is a greater than 10% chance the technology “could kill all humans” within the next decade. Wall Street Journal
Chancellor aims to double number of UK unicorns
John Healey said in his first speech since being appointed Chancellor that he wants to double the number of billion-dollar-valued private businesses in Britain. The speech followed the announcement of a new £150 million northern scaleup fund, focused on backing scaling university spinouts. CityAM
CloudNC secures $20m Series B extension
CloudNC, a developer of AI-powered CAM Assist software, has raised a $20 million extension to its Series B round. The funding was led by Nimble Ventures, with further investment from Calculus Venture Capital, Entrepreneurs First and LM Capital. TechCrunch
Claret Capital Partners confirms £500m Fund IV
Claret Capital Partners has announced the final close of Claret European Growth Capital Fund IV at £500 million. The fund is already being deployed with investments in companies across technology, life sciences and impact sectors in Europe. Soapbox VC
Molten Ventures raises £175m scaleup fund
Molten Ventures has raised £175 million for a new fund aimed at bridging the lack of scaleup capital, often seen as a problem in keeping the fastest-growing UK companies in the UK. The British Business Bank led the fundraise with a cornerstone investment of £75 million. Times
Sheffield’s SCI Semiconductor bags £5m
SCI Semiconductor, which designs chips that embed memory safety directly into computer architecture, has raised a £5 million round led by PXN Ventures and Mercia Ventures, with additional funding from Osney Capital and Black Opal Ventures. Tech.EU
Innovation at the heart of the UK
The UK boasts world-class research universities, cutting-edge scientific breakthroughs, and promising regional innovation clusters, but its productivity lags behind other nations. According to former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, this comes down to a “marked failure in the diffusion of innovation”. FT
AI will “cure cancer in our lifetime”
The CEO of Cambridge-based chip designer Arm, Rene Haas, has predicted that AI will find a cure for cancer in our lifetimes. Haas stated that AI will lead to a breakthrough in modelling how a DNA marker is impacted by cancer. BBC
Feel Good Inc. for the EU
European startup founders and investors have published an open letter urging EU lawmakers not to dilute the proposed EU Inc legal entity. The tech leaders warn that watering down key provisions such as a single central registry and standardised employee stock option rules could render the framework ineffective. TechCrunch
Driving SCC’s multi-million-pound AI transformation
Russell Brown, CEO of SCC UK, joined Mark Edwards on the Channel Zone Podcast to explain how the 50-year-old technology firm is simplifying its complex operations to improve accessibility and speed up decision-making without shrinking its core capabilities. Channel Zone Podcast
The Rundown is back and we’ll soon be adding a new section on all the policy developments affecting the technology and investment ecosystem. You might say, we’re better than ever. Well, we suppose you’ll be the judge of that, not us. Or, if you fancy judging something that isn’t The Rundown, check out The Guardian’s ‘You be the judge‘ column.
Unfortunately, not everyone’s back. Not with the severe disruptions to air traffic control. London Heathrow, London Gatwick, Manchester, and London Stansted airports were among those affected by a technical issue that grounded thousands of flights. While the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), the National Air Traffic Services (NATS), and the Government are working to understand what went wrong, mass tech outages have been rather commonplace as of late. Just last week, ChatGPT, Claude and Grok all went out at the same time. That took people back to a time before AI. Imagine the horror. For some people, the outage was a blessing – some went out to see the sun, and others had to use their brains again (AI critic Paris Marx’s words, not ours). Did you manage to survive the Great AI Disruption of 2026 (our words this time)? On a more serious note, even the most temporary of glitches can highlight an intrinsic systemic challenge that impacts deadlines and bottom lines. According to Dr Manish Patel, CEO and Founder of Jiva.ai, single-model dependency is a real business risk, which also exposes the key issue of relying on third-party providers. However, there is a lesson to be learnt here. Effective enterprise-grade AI requires infrastructure resilience and model ownership, as “model sovereignty can keep critical workflows running, regardless of which or how many external providers go offline”.
Despite many travellers being stranded, one group increasingly finding a way out of Britain is the super-wealthy. Uber-rich Brits are looking for more tax-friendly places to call home, with Greece joining the ranks of Geneva, Monaco and Milan as a potential option. Hedge fund billionaire Chris Rokos (who just so happens to be the UK’s third-largest taxpayer) is “terrified” about the “risk of an exit tax being introduced”, hence his planned move to Mediterranean shores. Let’s see if the airport issues will hinder this mass exodus of wealth.